TUCSON, Ariz. – Arizona’s recently released state school budget has Tucson Unified School District Superintendent H.T. Sanchez hot under the collar.

“I look forward to Gov. (Doug) Ducey explaining to parents how this doesn’t affect the quality of instruction their children receive,” he said in a sternly worded statement.

“When you think about these cuts, people might think of highly paid administrators. But if you look closer at the budget, you’ll see these cuts go beyond administration,” Sanchez said.

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The superintendent is perturbed because Ducey’s education budget calls for a 5 percent cut to things that do not directly impact students – “everything outside of the classroom,” as Sanchez’s press release puts it.

“This puts additional stress on TUSD, which has already seen $14 million cut from (the district’s) capital funds this year,” the press release said. As a result of the new budget “all open non-classroom teacher positions will be scrutinized before being filled.”

In other words, teaching positions are on the chopping block as a means to fix the district’s budget situation.

A recent EAGnews analysis of TUSD’s 2013-14 check registrar and credit card statements, however, reveals that there are other spending cuts school officials could consider before eliminating teaching positions – particularly the district’s travel budget.

Records obtained through a public information request show TUSD spent nearly $250,000 on travel and lodging expenses for school employees and others in 2013-14, some of it at luxury hotels.

They included dozens of trips to cities across the country, including Albuquerque, N.M.; Sacramento; New Orleans; San Antonio; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix; Dallas; Seattle; Detroit; Orlando; San Diego; Las Vegas;  Berkley, California;  Anaheim, California; Boston; Atlanta; Minneapolis; Salt Lake City; Chicago; Mesa, Ariz.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Chandler, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; Sun Valley, Idaho and other locations.

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Airfare and other arrangements for those trips were presumably handled by “Rio Grand Travel 1,” which received $112,664 from the district in 2013-14, records show.

School officials spent money at 83 different hotels. Twenty-one of those received at least $1,000, including the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel for $8,562, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans for $5,749, the Marriott San Antonio for $5,497, Washington, D.C.’s Churchill Hotel for $4,329, the Marriott San Diego Marina for $2,331, and the Westin Las Vegas for $1,599.

Many of the accommodations were four- or five-star, such as the famed Sun Valley Resort, Las Vegas’ “ultra-chic” Cosmopolitan casino hotel, the TradeWinds Island Grand Resort in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, the Cottonwoods Resort & Suites in Scottsdale, and The Churchill Hotel, “a boutique hotel on Embassy Row” in downtown Washington, D.C.

Beyond the obvious hotel charges, TUSD also provided documents detailing lodging expenses built into educational conferences and other meetings totaling $12,160, as well as car and bus rental charges of $7,988.

Many school officials around the nation defend their travel expenses because the trips are often for professional development conferences, and are frequently funded with federal grants.

But if schools are really hard-pressed for operational dollars, why won’t the feds let them divert that travel money to pay for more important functions?

That’s a legitimate question that more taxpayers should be asking.